From Damien Hirst’s "Spot Challenge" to Theaster Gates’s highly political work about civil rights and Birmingham, ARTINFO has selected 9 outstanding shows going on all over the world that you’ll want to keep up with.

“Conceptual kitbashing” is what Kaino calls his process, harnassing an eclectic background that includes training in computer science, comic books, and animation, knowledge of the music industry and studies of magic towards the body of work showcased in his first solo show at Honor Fraser. The appropriated odd bits used for materials and combinations of disciplines make every work a collage of culture. [Link]

Belgian painter Van Imschoot’s first solo exhibition with the gallery is a nod to masters Caravaggio, Tintoretto, El Greco, Van Eyck, and Beuckelaer. His large-scale oils on canvas put a contemporary spin on baroque technique, as his compositions are not just infused with modern subject matter but also reveal Imschoot’s personal spin on the art historical period. [Link]

Theaster Gates’s “An Epitaph for Civil Rights” at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, Through February 13

The Chicago-based artist and urban planner reflects on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s campaign in Birmingham in 1963 through a series of “non-aesthetic” sculptural installations that are intensely political. [Link]

While the world celebrates Rodin as the influential sculptor, this exhibition sheds new light on his skills as a draftsman. The later part of the artist’s career was spent refining his line-work and completing a massive arsenal of masterful drawings of live models that resulted in almost 7,000 pages, many of which have made it to the museum for this show. [Link]

This group show features the work of artists redefining the medium that has been at the heart of formal art-making for centuries. The work of Gavin Turk, Andrzej Jackowski, Raymond Pettibon, and others exemplifies the changes occurring in the application of drawing worldwide. [Link]

LIVERPOOL

John Kirby’s “The Living and the Dead” at the Walker Art Gallery, William Brown St., Liverpool, Opening January 13

In Kirby’s first major retrospective, featuring over 50 paintings and 10 sculptures made over three decades, his sexualized and solitary portraits in disturbingly surreal settings take center stage at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. [Link]

Matthew Day Jackson makes his European mark with a first solo show across the pond, via a media-diverse group of work bound by his prolific research on the subjects of anthropology, technology, and astronautics. [Link]

Nasher Sculpture Center continues its “Sightings” series with Syrian-born, American artist Al-Hadid’s architectural sculptures that reference and recreate fragments of cathedrals, towers, labyrinths, and cities to form amalgamated and ambiguous homages to man-made structures. [Link]

The spots go global today in all 11 Gagosian Gallery locations around the world, showing the artist’s most ambitious project in its complete form — a body of work so large no one institution could hold it all. Stay tuned for the results of Gagosian’s “Complete Spot Challenge.” After successfully completing a world tour of all the shows the winner will be given a Hirst-signed spot print to call their own. [Link]

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Click the link at the top left to view a slide show of featured artworks.